Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a method of evaluating a cancer patient who is applicable to be treated with an immunotherapy and the method of prognosticating a survival rate for the cancer patient after a treatment. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to the method of evaluating a glioblastoma multiforme patient who is applicable to be treated with an immunotherapy based on a dendritic cell tumor vaccine and the method of prognosticating the survival rate in the glioblastoma multiforme patient after the treatment.
Description of Related Art
A glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is an astrocytoma of a glioma, as known as Grade IV Astrocytoma in the WHO classification. The GBM is the most commonly and the most aggressive malignant primary brain tumor in humans.
Conventional practices for GBM treatments involve a surgery, a radiation therapy and a chemotherapy. Glial cells in a brain are a kind of the constituent units of a nervous system, glial cells tightly cover axons and provide functions such as support, nutrition supplement, constant environment maintenance and insulation. However, because the axon is very long, the tumor cells will spread along the axon to a distant place once the glial cells become cancerous; that is, the GBM has a very high infiltration, which refers to a migration of cells from their sources to other place. The surgery could not remove a distant infiltration part of the tumor cells, and therefore the chemotherapy and/or the radiotherapy is needed for killing residual tumor cells in the distant infiltration part after the surgery. However, the presence of cancer stem cells having a radioresistance and a chemoresistance causes a high recurrence rate after such treatments.
In recent years, some biomarkers have been used to diagnose cancers, determine adjuvant therapies, or estimate prognoses in patients besides general checkups and traditional clinical stages. For example, estrogen receptor (ER) and epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) are used as biomarkers for choosing therapeutic drugs in the diagnosis and the treatment of breast cancer. Because of the high malignancy, high recurrence rate after treatments, and high death rate, it is important to develop a method for treating the GBM, or the method for predicting a survival rate in the patient after the treatment. Therefore, physicians can prepare more appropriate treatment plans for individual patients in clinical to improve the survival rate after the treatment.